Encounter in Atlanta

by Ed Howdershelt

corridor toward her room she went. A man in a suit -- one of Frank's people -- glanced out of one of the rooms and recognized her with a nod and a small salute. Mandi nodded back as she passed, but her stride remained constant until she reached her door. Once in her room, Mandi picked up the TV's remote as she set her purse and key card on the bed, flicked the channel to WNN, and noted the time on the screen bar. Five-fifty-eight. Two minutes to newstime. Mandi sat on the edge of the bed and watched the remnants of an item about some event in Marseilles, France, that didn't seem particularly newsworthy to her. The cell phone in her purse chirped and she reached for it with more than a trace of irritation. Someone had to choose just this moment to call her... Tapping it on, she said, "Angel here." "Dragonfly here. You sound a little tense, milady. Sounds as if we're watching the same channel." Listening to the background sounds at his end, Mandi said, "Yes, we are. It sounds as if you're in a bar, Dragonfly." "Only because I am, ma'am. I stopped in the lobby's pub to grab a burger platter. Had the bartender turn on the news, in case the newsies have used the last couple of hours to figure a way around the confiscations. Have you made any plans yet?" "Plans?" "Yeah. If they show the pictures, will you stay at the convention or leave?" With a ladylike snort, Mandi said, "Leave, I'd think." "Won't help," said Cade. "If I can make blowups, others can, too, and they'll circulate nationwide. Worldwide. Did you see the 'Dawn' lookalike contest in the program guide? If the pictures are shown, what would you say to a 'Mandi Steele Lookalike Contest'? After something like that, you'd be just another pretty tree in the forest while you're here." After a moment of horrified silence, Mandi asked, "You're actually serious, aren't you?" Around a mouthful of french fries, Cade said, "Yup. I know a guy who can set it up and they can build it into one of the other costume contests. It can be the first of its kind." "The what?!" "The first ever 'Mandi Steele Lookalike Contest'. Who knows? If you enter, you might even win. Think about it and call me back after the news." He disconnected and Mandi sat staring at the phone. Had Cade lost his mind?

  Chapter Eight

  The last commercial ended and the fanfare intro music for the top-of-the-hour news began as a camera zoomed in on the head and shoulders of a smiling brunette anchorwoman who introduced herself as Wendy Swale. When the first quarter of the hour dealt only with the usual sorts of news and issues of the day, Mandi began to feel as if she'd been worried for nothing. After all, John had the full weight of the US government behind him, and... "Ladies and gentlemen," said Wendy, "We've just been informed that the following footage, taken with a digital camera in downtown Atlanta earlier this afternoon, has been sent anonymously to more than one hundred news organizations worldwide. With more on the story, here's David Thrush, our news director." Thrush's head and shoulders were full-screen as he greeted the audience, then he was quickly reduced to quarter-screen as a second camera feed filled the rest of the screen. Mandi's fists clenched and her heart sank as she watched herself leap over the taxi, lift the front end of it, and launch skyward. The camera rather belatedly elevated to follow her upward and stayed focused on her until the taxi exploded. Car horns sounded, the camera swiveled and lowered to come to rest on a rapidly approaching wall of traffic, and then there was a brief break of blackness before the entire sequence of events was repeated. As the scene replayed a few more times to his left, Thrush explained that the pictures appeared to be genuine. He nodded to someone off-screen and the repetitions of Mandi taking off with the car were replaced by a blow-up of her face. The expanded view wasn't very clear, but at that moment Mandi wasn't really in the mood to critique photographic skills. Her face had just appeared on national television. In the name of the people of Atlanta, Thrush thanked the 'mysterious superwoman' for her heroic deed, hoped aloud that she'd somehow survived the explosion, and begged her to come forward to receive the thanks of a grateful public. He then said that there'd be further discussion of the pictures on a later news-related show and relinquished the screen to Wendy, who echoed his sentiments that the superwoman come forward in an apparently heartfelt manner before she glibly continued reading from the teleprompter about other news of the day. Mandi stood up as she stared at the screen, then strode to the closet and took out her two suitcases. As she opened them on the bed, her cell phone chirped. She ignored it, returning to the closet for an armload of clothes. There was a knock at the door as she laid the clothes on the bed. She almost ignored that, too, but her glance in that direction noticed a sheet of paper being shoved under the door. She went to pick it up. It read, 'Come to my room. Door is open. Cade." Opening the door, she found him leaning on the doorframe, a bottle of beer in one hand and a cell phone in the other. "Why would I want to go to your room?" she asked. Pulling an Ice House beer from under his jacket, Cade opened it and handed it to her as he said, "Here, I smuggled this out of the bar for you. Frank and everybody else on the teams have probably dropped their forks and are most likely on their way back up here. I'd say you have about five minutes to be elsewhere." Taking the beer, Mandi wryly said, "Gee, thanks, mister, but Timbuctu and Borneo are considered 'elsewhere' too. Why should I go to your room in particular?" "So you won't be in your room when they get here, that's all. Turn off your phone. Kick off your shoes and relax. We can ring John and Alan on my phone and tell them to settle the herd, then talk about what to do next." Laughing, Mandi asked, "Next? Next I head back to Vegas." She took a long hit from her beer as Cade said, "Uh, huh. I've heard they even have TV's in Vegas nowadays, ma'am. John said that there are still four terrorists unaccounted for. Do you really want to be way out West if they try something else this weekend? We still don't know why they chose this time and place. Could be it isn't over yet." "He didn't say anything to me about four more of them." "Well, he didn't tell the rest of us about you, either, so it could be he just doesn't communicate very well, y'know?" Levering himself off the door frame, Cade said, "I'll leave my door open, just in case. Later, milady," and swigged his beer as he headed for his room. Some guy with a phone to his ear opened the temporary ops room's door across the hall, saw Mandi, and spoke to someone as he stood there. Cade veered across the corridor and noddingly pushed past him into the room. The guy followed, protesting, but his objections ceased as Cade showed him his ID. "Where's Frank?" asked Cade. "Uh, downstairs, at dinner. Which group are you with?" "I'm on John's B-team. We worked with the cops today. You guys got any loaner laptops in here?" "No, they're two doors down. See Mitchell or Gray." "Will do. Thanks," said Cade, heading for the door. Some twenty steps later he had to use his keycard on his door, which hadn't been closed when he'd left the room. Letting himself in, he closed the door securely and turned to see Mandi step from behind the hallway corner by the bed. With a grin, Cade said, "Hi, there. You're as quick as ever. Should I send out for more beer?" Waving her half-full bottle, Mandi smiled and said, "Oh, not just yet, I think. I didn't really come here to party. Thanks for running interference for me." Looking enlightened, Cade said, "I knew there was a name for that," and handed her his phone. "Might as well call John and see what he has to say about what happened." Mandi put the phone on the desk and pulled the chair out to sit down, then said, "In a little while. First I'd like to hear what you think about what happened." Cade sat on the end of the bed and sipped his beer, then shrugged. "I can think of a few possibilities. One; a kid named Jeremy sandbagged a copy of the pictures and sent them to news outfits all over the place. Two; some news guy may have set up a way around the ban. If the pix really were sent to a hundred unaffiliated stations -- and I think they probably were -- some of those stations would have put them on the air." He sipped again, then said, "Three; the same unnamed people who are running this op -- or those above them -- may have decided to spill the beans about our new, no-longer-secret weapon. You know; to cheer up the voters and give the terrorists the finger at the same time. They wouldn't necessarily have felt
the need to tell John he was wasting his time trying to corral all the pictures. I'm sure this thought has occurred to John, as well, and that he's checking into who had access to the pix every step of the way." Shrugging, Cade sipped again, then said, "Whatever; we can chase down that end of things later. As I said, you're no